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Friday, June 19, 2015

eHeart

**Idgie Says: I am very pleased to be throwing some international flair into the Dew by presenting a third story from Jay Pee Yu of the Philippines that the Dew has published. Enjoy!

eHeart

by Jay Pee Yu

“Who’s God, mama?”

It wasn’t the first time that
Caleb had asked this question to his mother. So to Emily it was not a surprise
anymore. They were seated in the couch, watching the evening news. The bluish
fire-like illumination coming from the TV playfully danced all over their
faces. On the screen was a group of rallyists destroying the barricade of the
iHuman building. They were protesting against the proposition of iHuman to
terminate every industrial laborer and be replaced by the robots which the
company had been manufacturing.

“He created the earth. He
created the people, the birds, the flowers and the bees,” Emily said calmly.

“The sunshine, the trees, the
nights and the days,” said Caleb. His hands were brandishing in the air.

“Yes, honey. He created
everything.”

“Did he also make those people
angry?”

His index finger was toward the
TV. He did not directly indicate the violent activity, but Emily knew her son
meant it.

“No. People make themselves angry.
God only makes love. Nothing else but love. Pure love towards his creations.”
She looked at him and released a sweet smile. Then she reached for his head
kissed him there. He reciprocated it with a very tight and warm hug that almost
caused her to breathe hard.

He is growing, she thought, he
is growing mechanically.

“My classmates always talk
about God. I don’t know why they brag up about him. Sitti says there is only
one Allah, while Missy says she has no other god than Yahweh. They have
different gods. That’s weird.” His voice was muffled by her bosoms.

“Yes, Caleb, it is weird.”

Emily thought Caleb was now
processing all the data installed in his memory. Everything Dean had put in.
They were coming out now. But these manifestations of his intelligence seemed
dangerous.

“Ma, who is Allah? And who is
Yahweh?”

“I believe they are just one.”

“One?” The sound of doubt was
audible in his voice.

“Yes, only one.”

Emily looked at him with a glee
stretching the corners of her mouth.

“But, if they are really one,
why does Allah allow his believers to marry more than once, whereas Yahweh
deprives his believers even just to sleep with somebody who is not one’s wife?”

“Someday you will know why. All
I can tell you for now is that they are one, and they both love the people who
believe in them.”

It was getting dark outside.
Streets were emptied of people, taking their dinner.

Caleb pulled away from his
mother. And that was when Emily stared at him, trying to decipher the next
question Caleb would shoot to her.

“The people they created?” said
Caleb.

“Exactly.”

“Did they also create me?”

“No. It was me and your father who created you. Out of our love
you were made. Allah and Yahweh sent us their power and guidance, so we were
able to give you life. You are a grace from them, honey. A very special gift.”

She felt her heart beat up her
chest. She watched him stand up.

“I love you, ma. I always
will,” Caleb said softly.

Finally her heart received
ease. He looked contented in her answer, nonetheless.

She was lying awake. The room was cold and dark and quiet. She wanted it
this way, so she could hear anything that could make sounds from Caleb’s room
down to hers.

She really couldn’t sleep. She
still bore the conversation they had in the living room. It kept coming back
like a ghost.

Oh, Dean, why you did you leave
us? she thought.

Dean’s tragic death suddenly
breached her head, preoccupying her once again.

On Caleb’s first birthday,
Emily and Dean decided to take him to iHuman. It was not to sell the robot they
called son, but to introduce him to the world, that robots were not only
industrial machines used as an alternate to human laborers for advancements,
but also to give them a chance to be treated as human as well: to be part of
family, to be cared, to be a friend.

Dean was one of the pioneers in
iHuman. His skills and competitiveness couldn’t be matched. He created most of
the robot designs inside the company. He was really good. The company gave
everything he demanded, just to prolong his stay.

At home, he worked on his
greatest creation. A robot boy he named Caleb, a robot that he would really
love like a son. For nine months he dedicated himself to it. When finished, he
introduced it to his wife who later on would also love the robot which was
never far from a real boy.

iHuman contained the robots
underneath its matchbox-like building. They stored thousands of them, all and
every kind. They all had similar physical appearances: their titanium skeleton.

In the midst of the iHuman
success came the uprise and hatred from the marginalized workers who were
eliminated from the industrial plants they were working for, affected by the
growth of the robot production.

“Are you guys ok?” Dean said.
He was the driver. Emily and Caleb were at the back.

“Yes, dad.” Caleb neared
himself to his father’s back.

“We’re almost there.”

“Really?”

“Yes, big boy. Are you excited?”
said Dean. He was looking to Caleb from the rearview mirror.

There was no sun. Clouds
dominated the whole day. And there was a grey day madness that would change the
course of their journey.

“Your eyes on the road, Dean,
please,” Emily protested.

“Sure, dear,” he said. He
feigned tired.

“But you don’t.” She caught him
still looking at her.

“OK, o—”

“Watch out dad!”

A human figure ran across the
street and the car hit it. It was thrown away like a rag doll. Then the uproar
inside the iHuman compound attracted their attention.

The robots escaped underground
securities. They were ravaging everything on their way. Climbing the gates and
devastating the cars, and killing every human who tried to stop them. It was a
riot of mad monkeys dressed in metal suits.

“Oh my holy lord,” Emily
exclaimed. She grabbed Caleb and locked him in her arms.

“What’s happening, mama?”

She closed her own eyes and
said: “Nothing, honey. Nothing.”

She knew it was a weak answer.
How fool she was knowing that her son could perceive everything better than she
could.

“Stay he—”

A robot crashed on Emily’s
side. She was grateful that Dean had customized the car and was strongly
protected: windows and glasses had been designed to ward off bullets.

Another five robots surrounded
the car and shook it violently. One of them had a huge iron rod in hand. It
climbed up the hood up to the roof. From the ceiling of the car it stabbed and
struck Dean in the head. He died instantly.

And all of these memories
receded back to her head as a soft blue-green orb shone in the blackness of the
room, and a heavy breathing hung around.

“Mama, I will kill them.”

“Caleb? Sweetie, is that you?”

Emily rose up, frantic, and then
fumbled for the light. When it snapped on, she jolted up from the bed. Caleb
standing by the door intimidated her.

“Caleb, why are you still up?”

“Mama, I could see them from
your dream. The robots. They killed daddy. I even heard their anger from here
to my room.”

It was like a thousand needles
blown to her face. Cold needles penetrating into her skin.

She took his hands but gave it
away as she was scorched by its heat. It felt like a fire. They were so hot.

“What happened—”

His hands produced those
fireballs she had witnessed accumulating in the dark. He was now really
progressing, and she dreaded that it would be greater these days.

After she had sent Caleb to school, she went to her bed. Distracted, she
kept on thinking on every second Caleb spent with his classmates.

Now, seated at the kitchen table, Emily looked worried. Anxiety was
slowly creeping on her. The fact that her son could hear and see other people’s
thoughts sent chills to her body. The moment she had been fearing of had
finally come.

The call from the school
dragged her out of her negative wondering. The fire spared no one except Caleb.
It was terrifying to learn that her son was the only student who had survived
the incident. The fire totally burnt down the north wing building where all the
elementary students had their classes. And everyone therein was toasted to death.

She knew it was not a miracle
that saved her son, but the malevolent power he possessed inside him.

She found Caleb smudged with
black everywhere, sitting beneath a gigantic tree. He was horrified and dazed,
hard to talk to. He was hiding his hands in his charcoaled polo. And his tears
incessantly streamed down his cheeks.

Emily knelt down before him and held his hands.

“Are you all right, honey?” She
wanted to ask what happened, but she chose to push the thought away.

“Mama, I didn’t mean to do it.”
He was going to cry.

“Hush… It’s okay, honey.
Everything’s fine now. Don’t worry, it’s not your fault.” She realized it was
wrong. She should have explained that he did something terrible and it was
very, very wrong. But she could do nothing but pity over him, and let him feel
that she was not angry after all this.

“I’ll take you home. Let’s clean up your wounds.”

“Ma,” Caleb said.

“What?”

Caleb only nodded then, and
fell quiet.

Off they went home, stealthily.

“Tell me what really happened and why you needed to do that.”

She was holding his scorched
hand, removing the melted prosthetics and replacing them with new ones.

“I-I heard them. They said I am
weird, that I am not human. I am not human. They were talking about me.”

There was a quiver in every
breath he took.

“That’s not true, honey. You
are a human. It was—” she faltered. She wanted to say “it was me who gave birth
to you” but, like the wind, it just drifted away, and instead she said: “It’s
me and your daddy who gave life to you. No one else did, but us. Always
remember that. That’s why I know that you are human, and please, believe only on
it. I won’t let them hurt you again with false accusations.”

His hands were almost gone,
distorted.

“Your hands, what happened to
them?”

“There was fire from them.
Small fires with different colors,” he said with half-amazed and half-scared
look on his face.

“Don’t do that again, okay?”

She did not question him any
further. Nor tell him the number of innocence he had killed and the aftermath
he had left to their families. Casualties, they were better left unsaid.

Caleb slung the green eco-bag over his shoulder. It was half of his
height and loaded with vegetables and fruits.

“There’s more, mama?” Caleb complained,
but was unheeded.

Emily was picking up lemons.

A woman walked past them. Then
suddenly she shrieked because her bag gave up. Apples dropped and rolled on the
floor.

“Let me help,” Caleb offered as
he stooped down to pick up the apples.

Emily became proud of her son’s
courteous attitude.

“Thank you—”

The woman stared at Caleb. Her
eyes were filled with surprise and furious, and her jaws were rigid like a
brick.

“You’re a robot, aren’t you!”
she blurted out.

The prosthetics that Emily had
covered on Caleb’s hands had been peeled off. His scorched arm was revealed and
the woman went berserk over it.

“He’s a robot! He’s a robot!
We’re in danger!”

Spectators
began to gather around them. Their eyes all turned to Caleb. At first they
murmured. Then one by one they picked up apples and oranges and everything that
they could throw to the boy. One of them hit Caleb on the head with a ponkan,
and then everyone was hurling fruits and vegetables toward him.

Then Emily shielded her son
with her body. She deflected all their curses. Then something hard hit her on
the temple and a warm, thin fluid streaked down her face.

“Mama, you’re bleeding,” said
Caleb.

She did not speak. With haste
and bravery, she wrapped herself around her little boy until they finally got
out of the market.

“Mama, you’re hurt…”

“Don’t worry, I’m fine. Are you
hurt?”

“No. I’m okay.” Caleb spread
his arms, proving that he was not lying.

“But you, you are. Why are they
so mad at me, mama? Do they know what happened at the school?”

This time she ignored him.

In just a day everything seemed a torture and cruelty to both of them.
Suddenly everyone was enemy, as though something urged them to conspire and
eliminate this mother and her child on the face of the planet.

This called out sleeplessness.
The feeling was unpleasant. Emily gave up trying even to have short naps. She
stood and walked toward the door, wanting a glass of cool water. But before she
exited the room, a massive explosion of sound and light from the outside stole
away the serenity was just beginning to grow.

The houses down the blocks were
being eaten by a horrendous fire. Mothers and children were screaming for help.
They all looked afraid. The neighborhood was caged in terror and panic. And in the
middle of this hysteria and holocaust was Caleb, balling electricity in his
palms and fired them like cannonballs.

Emily hustled into the street.
She saw her son standing barefoot on the ground. She couldn’t breathe listening
to the voices of fire and dread and suffering, and to the fact that Caleb was
the reason behind this hellish scenario.

A man on fire lay down in front
of her and rolled to kill the fire off his body. Their pain attached to her,
and she too began to cry. And her eyes mirrored the blaze of Caleb’s
retribution.

She watched him tromped toward
her. He was shivering, but his body’s temperature was menacingly high. She
pulled him to her, seized his shoulders.

“Sweetie, what have you done?”
she sounded breathy and ragged and wasted, full of ire and frustration.

“Mama—”

She slapped him.

“Mama, I only wanted to protect
you. I only wanted to—”

Then her hand hit him again. A
facet of surrender from his eyes looked up at her.

The police cars came first,
warbling. Then the shrill wail of ambulances and firetrucks eventually owned
the night.

“No! You don’t! What you did
has only hurt me more! And hurt these people. Oh, god, please help me bear with
this. What have you done, Caleb. Look at them now.”

“The demon! That’s the demon!”
somebody from the crowd shouted.

Emily turned to the source of
the sound. She was a woman of forty with an infant son cradled in her arms. She
was weeping.

“Your son, he’s the demon! He
must die”

It felt like a stab to Emily’s
chest: He must die!

And it was echoed by the people
as they mobbed her and her son. They were covered with gouges and dust and
smoke. They hurdled and glared at Caleb.

“Kill the demon!”

“He’s a robot, he must be
terminated.”

Eliminate! Kill! We’re in
danger!

All of their cries had
tormented Emily. She wanted to have a breakdown and just die now.

She could see the anger
collected in their veins bulging on their sick faces.

Pebbles and plastic cups flew
as they launched an attack.

The authorities waded through
them, storming to where Emily and Caleb were.

“Move, people, move! Calm down.
We’re going to fix it.”

The crowd continued on throwing
stuff. Only when one of the police fired a gun toward the sky did they relax.

“Go get medical assistance.
Help yourself out of the situation. Evacuate this place now! You’re all in
danger here, for god’s sake, leave!”

Then they gradually left. And
the policemen spoke to Emily.

“Is he your son?”

“Yes, sir,” Emily said
politely.

The police looked down at
Caleb, as if he was scanning the boy.

“How are you doing, little
boy?”

“I’m doing good, sir. Thank you
for asking.”

The police rejected this answer
for it made him feel giddy. And asked the same question, but with the tone of
irony on it this time.

Caleb gave the same answer, and
the police heard sarcasm on it. He couldn’t imagine this innocent face was
concealing a monster that was not yet fully unleashed.

“I hope you don’t mind to come
with us to the station, missus. We got a lot of things talk about.” He looked
around. “Something must be settled down. Accomplished, perhaps.”

When the street was clear of
people, Emily and Caleb got into the car.

“He must be shut down. It’s for every one’s safety. And to you as well.”

“You want to kill my son?”
Emily inquired.

“No, missus. We just need to
shut him down. Is that clear?”

“I see no difference. You want
him dead.”

“We ought to do that. And I
believe you understand that. And it’s urgent.”

“No. I mean, yes, I do
understand what you’re trying to tell me. But I just can’t let you do that.
It’s not that easy to give up a child. He’s all I have. He’s the last. And I
don’t want to lose him, now that’s he’s the last thing that makes me happy and
live more. I can’t live another day without him. It would be the hardest. Who
would call me mama every morning if he’s gone? Who would sit with me at the
table during breakfast? Who? Tell me—who!”

Emily broke into intermittent
sobs.

“We don’t want to be ruthless
to your feeling, missus. But we got to do that as soon as possible.”

“Ok. Do what you can. Just
promise that this will be as soon as you leave this room.”

Emily stood up and gripped on
Caleb’s wrist.

Morning light came early, but the morning was still blanketed by the
black smoke of tonight’s holocaust. Caleb’s room was heavy in silence.

“I’m tired, mama,” he said.

“Go to sleep, honey. You need
rest now.”

“Mama, please stay beside me.”

“That would be good, honey.”
Saying this already encumbered her with impending longings.

She bent and kissed him.

Twenty minutes passed and he
dozed off.

She didn’t want to leave his
bed, but she knew she had to. She went downstairs and went to the kitchen. She
looked for a cutter and grass-shears. She plodded back to his room. For nearly
an hour she only stood there and watched him sleep. He reminded her of an
angel: a cuddly and honest one.

And when the time had come, she
opened Caleb’s shirt and pressed the cutter into his prosthetic chest. No need
to disable his running system. Just his heart. She slid the cutter down and
made a huge cross shape. She peeled off the artificial skin and fumbled for his
heart. It was fist size, made of titanium in mango shape. There was a plastic
tube at its top, containing three wires coded in three colors: red, green, and
blue. It was faintly glowing, a sign of relax and eased body. She touched the
wires and an electric current bolted up in her arm. A very gentle spark that
connected her to him. She wanted more of it. His life.

“Mama, what are you doing?”

The robot boy was suddenly
fully awaked. His voice unnerved her.

“This will help you feel
comfortable, honey.”

Against the electrocution and
the panic on her son’s face, she immediately disconnected the wires from his
electric heart using the shears. The glow slowly dimmed, then it died.

She briskly walked out of the
room and waited for the sun to appear.

______________________________________________

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Jayps is a graduate of Graphic Arts and Printing Technology at the
Technological University of the Philippines and has worked in a
printshop and in a recruitment agency. He believes that his short stints
in the BPOs will not be considered as a job. He lives in the
Philippines, in a tiny piece of land where the sun rises from Sierra
Madre and the nightsky is still clear.
Visit Jayps at inkbloodmilk.tumblr.com

The day "Claire" from Lost mentioned me!

Pat Says:

Pat Conroy just told me that I take a foul art and give it a queenly air, then he kissed my hand.

Decatur Book Festival, 2014

Books that "Stuck"

In no particular order: Bill Bryson and James Herriot....I have re-read anything they write multiple times.We're All DamagedThe End of the World Running ClubHandmaid's Tale Watership DownRiversDesperation RoadBull Mountain The Stand The Poisonwood Bible Black Beauty The Road... read once, will never read again, but it stuck. Lonesome Dove Gone With The Wind....of course Earth Abides A Brave New World

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Idgie

“She is too fond of books, and it has turned her brain.” —Louisa May Alcott